Wrath of the mountain ma.., p.1
Wrath of the Mountain Man, page 1
part #32 of Mountain Man Series
Dear Reader,
Many years ago, when I was a kid, my father said to me, “Bill, it doesn’t really matter what you do in life. What’s important is to be the best William Johnstone you can be.”
I’ve never forgotten those words. And now, many years and almost 200 books later, I like to think that I am still trying to be the best William Johnstone I can be. Whether it’s Ben Raines in the Ashes series, or Frank Morgan, the Last Gunfighter, or Smoke Jensen, our intrepid Mountain Man, or John Barrone and his hard-working crew keeping America safe from terrorist lowlifes in the Code Name series, I want to make each new book better than the last and deliver powerful storytelling.
Equally important, I try to create the kinds of believable characters that we can all identify with, real people who face tough challenges. When one of my creations blasts an enemy into the middle of next week, you can be damn sure he had a good reason.
As a storyteller, my job is to entertain you, my readers, and to make sure that you get plenty of enjoyment from my books for your hard-earned money. This is not a job I take lightly. And I greatly appreciate your feedback — you are my gold, and your opinions do count. So please keep the letters and e-mails coming.
Respectfully yours,
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WILLIAM W.
JOHNSTONE
WRATH OF THE
MOUNTAIN MAN
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2004 by William W. Johnstone
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10 9
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
PROLOGUE
Sheriff Buck Tolliver set a bottle of whiskey in the middle of the rough-hewn table and took his seat. There were four other men sitting there, each as rough and weathered-looking at the old boards of the table.
Jerry Hogarth, known to friend and foe alike simply as Hog, both because of his great size and his rather slovenly personal hygiene, grabbed the bottle and splashed a generous amount into the tin cup in front of him. He also managed to pour about a third of a cup down the front of his already heavily stained shirt.
Bubba Barkley, sitting on Hog’s left, gave him a rough elbow. ‘You gonna pass that bottle on over here or are you gonna try’n keep it all to yoreself, Hog?” Bubba was almost as big as Hog, but unfortunately had about the same mental ability — that is to say, very little.
Hog gave him a look, but shoved the bottle over with the back of a grimy hand as big as a ham.
Before Bubba was through pouring, Jimmy Akins, called the Kid by everyone because he favored fancy gunfighter attire and looked to be only about eighteen instead of his nearly twenty-three, shifted the toothpick around in his mouth and grunted, pointing at his own tin cup.
“You too lazy to pour yore own?” Bubba asked, but he poured anyway. “Or are you still trying to keep your gun hand free in case some desperado breaks in here and you have to fast-draw on him?” Bubba was referring to the Kid’s rather irritating habit of trying to use his left hand for everything in order to keep his right hand hovering near the butt of his pistol. He’d read in a dime novel that it was something the real Kid named Billy used to do.
Buck ignored them and addressed himself to the remaining man at the table, Jeb Hardy, who unlike the others was well groomed and neatly dressed, and might almost have looked like an accountant, if you failed to notice his dead, cold, snakelike eyes, the way his pistol was tied down low on his right hip, and the way the wooden handle of the Colt was worn down from frequent use.
“How’d we do last week, Jeb?” Buck asked.
Jeb gave a half smile, reached into a leather case sitting on the floor next to him, and brought out a handful of papers. “We obtained the stake certificates to four new mines, and partnership agreements on three others,” he said, his eyes smug.
“Any trouble?” Buck asked, meaning had they had to kill anyone to get the papers.
Jeb shrugged, his eyes again going flat, making it plain that he didn’t appreciate being questioned like some lowly employee about how he’d done his job. “Not too much. A couple of miners fell and broke their arms, and one got a broken jaw, but we didn’t have to plant any of them forked-end-up.”
Buck nodded, pleased with the week’s work. Before long, he and his band of men would own or control ninety percent of the best gold and silver mines in the county.
“I wanna know somethin’, Buck,” Hog growled, whiskey running down his chin, which he blotted with the tail of his shirt.
"Yeah, Hog?” Buck answered, turning to stare at the man and wondering how in the world one man could attract so much dirt and grime without actually lying down and wallowing in it.
“How come we do all the dirty work an’ you an’ Jeb git to keep most of the profits?” He glanced at Bubba and the Kid, but both of them just lowered their eyes and pretended they hadn’t heard the question. They, unlike Hog, were smart enough to know it wasn’t healthy to question either Buck or Jeb about the split of their take. Better to just take what they were offered and be thankful they weren’t really having to work for a living.
Buck put out a hand when Jeb’s eyes flashed. He’d handle this, he signaled Jeb with a look.
“It’s very simple, Hog, so even a dumb son of a bitch like you ought to be able to understand it.” When Hog’s eyes widened and his face turned beet red, Buck pointed to the sheriffs badge on his shirt. ‘This badge and my job as sheriff of this county is what is keeping all of our butts out of jail, and Jeb’s law degree is what enables him to finesse these claim stakes and partnership agreements through the courthouse and, if they’re ever challenged, through the courts so that we’ll get our money without being hauled into jail and strung up for claim-jumping and murder.”
He leaned across the table and glared at Hog and the others next to him. “All you bring to the table, Hog, is your muscle, which I can hire on any street in any town in this county for half what I’m paying you.” He paused, not wanting to talk too fast for Hog’s slow-witted mind to keep up. “Am I making myself clear?” Hog pursed his lips and nodded reluctantly, the color still high on his cheeks and sweat glistening on his forehead. ‘Yeah, I guess so.”
“No
The mention of the livery put fear in Hog’s eyes. He’d hated shoveling out the livery every day, but mucking stalls had been the only job he could get until Buck and Jeb had offered him this one. “No, no,” he said, holding up his hands. “What you’re payin’ me is jest fine.”
The Kid looked at Hog disgustedly, shaking his head. What a dumb ass, he thought. The Kid didn’t particularly think his pay was so hot, but the job had other compensations for him: He got to bully, beat up, and draw down on men just about every day, and this fed his soul much more than any money ever could. No, he’d keep his mouth shut. Things were going along just fine as far as he was concerned, and to be honest, he wasn’t all that sure he could outdraw Jeb in a fair fight if it came down to it.
“Speaking of money,” Buck said, drawing a wad of greenbacks out of his coat pocket and throwing it down on the table. “Weekend is coming up, so take that and go on into town and live it up a little bit.” He got up from the table. “But be careful not to flash around the whole wad and draw attention to yourselves; and you’d better not cause any trouble in my town,” he warned, pointing his finger at the men. “Remember what I said. Save the rough stuff for work.”
Buck walked out of the old, ramshackle mining cabin where he always met his men and pulled a long, black cheroot out of his shirt pocket. He fired up a lucifer and put the flame to the end of the stogie.
Jeb walked out and stood next to him, making sure he was upwind of the pungent tobacco smoke. “You think we need to worry about Hog?” he asked.
Buck blew out a stream of blue smoke and shook his head. “No, he’s too dumb to try and go against us. Even he knows it’d be the end of a good thing for him.”
“How about the others?”
Buck shrugged. “Same thing. Where else are they going to earn so much money for so little work?"
"That’s for sure,” Jeb said. “’Cause we are making a hell of a lot of money.”
“And we’re going to keep on making it, partner,” Buck said, “as long as you keep any of the men we get the claims from too scared to go to the authorities.” Jeb’s eyes again turned flat and hard and evil. “Any of them that do manage to grow the cojones to make a complaint won’t live long enough to testify at a trial, that I’ll guarantee you.”
Buck shook his head. “Even so, I don’t want any complaints to come to the attention of the governor, so make sure you step on anyone who might even be thinking about shooting off their mouths.”
Jeb leaned over and spit on the ground. ‘You let me worry about that, Buck. You just keep on keeping the law off our backs and we’ll have enough money to retire to St. Louis within a year. ”
“St. Louis! Hell, I’m planning on going to New York City,” Buck said. He grinned. “I hear beautiful women are thick as fleas on a hound dog up there.”
Jeb looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, but if you’re planning on going up there, we might want to work an extra year. Those New York ladies are mighty expensive to maintain, especially for somebody as butt-ugly and downright crude as you, Buck.”
When Buck started to bristle, Jeb laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Just teasing you a mite, partner. Don’t take no offense now, you hear?” Buck’s eyes flashed. “Yeah, well if I did take offense at something you said, Jeb, you’d wake up with a bullet in your skull.”
All of the amusement went out of Jeb’s eyes in a flash and the grin faded from his lips. “Now don’t let your mouth overload your ass, Buck, or someone might think you’re good enough to take me down.” Buck smiled and tilted his head. “We may just have to find that out one of these days, Jeb.”
“Any time, Buck, any time.”
Buck rode back into what he liked to refer to as “his town” on his dun gelding, sitting high in the saddle, his chest thrown out, and a steely glint in his eye should anyone not know he was top dog in this kennel.
He’d come to the small mining camp known as Payday a few years back, when it was a typical lawless, anything-goes, wild and rowdy camp. Buck had seen his opportunity, and had bought himself a tin badge through a mail-order magazine and pinned it on. Anyone who had the temerity to question his authority found themselves looking down the barrel of his .45 Colt, or the twin barrels of the ten-gauge express gun he carried in a rifle boot on his saddle.
Buck was smart enough to not come down hard on the things the miners liked to do after working their claims all day, so he let the whores and the saloons and the gambling palaces stay in business, as long as they gave him a little cash on the side, “for security.” He did, however, run off both the town’s lawyers, not wanting anyone but himself deciding what was legal and what was illegal.
And when a drunk confided to all who would listen in a saloon one day that he was not only a good barber, but that he was a better than average dentist and doctor to boot, Buck managed to convince him the town needed him and that he could do worse than make Payday his home.
Dr. Hezekiah Bentley had settled in, and if the townspeople could manage to get injured before five in the afternoon when Bentley went off the wagon every day, they had a fair chance of getting fixed up and surviving the experience. If, on the other hand, they had the misfortune to get shot or stabbed or break a bone after dark, they tried their best to survive on their own until Doc woke up the next day and was over his hangover before consulting him — it was much safer that way.
As Buck rode down the main street, he nodded and tipped his hat at some of the ladies of the evening as they passed, and waved and shouted hellos to some of the men, who waved back. Buck was pretty popular in town, having learned it was better to govern by giving the people what they wanted rather than enforcing a stricter interpretation of the law. So, in Payday, just about everything was legal, everything except making Buck Tolliver angry.
Every week, usually on Friday afternoons when most of the surrounding miners were in town to spend the dust they’d pried from the earth the previous week, Buck held court in the largest saloon in town. He would place a chair on top of the bar and any men with grievances against one another would come before him to argue their cases. Buck would nod sagely and then rule, usually for the man with the most money or the best mine, extracting his “fee” for legal advice later when no one was around to witness the transaction.
The few men who didn’t appreciate Buck’s wisdom or his judgments would often later be found shot or stabbed to death. It didn’t take long for the people of Payday to get the hint: Buck Tolliver, for better or worse, was the law in their town, and if they didn’t like it, they should just move on — it was healthier that way.
After a few years of this, making a good living but not getting what he considered rich, Buck decided to expand his horizons. Payday was growing larger every day, and more and more people were coming up into the mountains of northern Colorado to make their fortune by mining. He remembered a friend of his brother’s, a man named Jeb Hardy, who’d managed to get a law degree through the mail and was working minor swindles on people back in the big city of Denver.
He took a vacation, made a run over to Denver, and looked Jeb up. Over drinks, after sharing a toast to Buck’s dead brother, Buck put his proposition to Jeb. If he’d come back to Payday and take care of the legal matters, Buck had an idea how they could both get rich, without having to work overly hard doing it.
Soon, they had a thriving business. Jeb and the hard cases they’d hired would locate isolated mines and then threaten or beat the men into giving them part of their operations in exchange for “security” to keep other claim-jumpers away. The fact that Jeb and his men were the only claim-jumpers in the area mattered not at all. There was no one, other than Sheriff Buck Tolliver, to complain to, and for some strange reason, that never seemed to do any good.
Most of the miners just gritted their teeth and gave Jeb and his men their percentage and kept on working their mines. The few who refused soon found they couldn’t mine much gold or silver with broken arms or wrecked equipment. Those that still weren’t convinced soon found themselves dead, shortly after signing over their claims to Jeb.
